Chapter Text
'I already regret this…. But I’d like to introduce you to my husband’s official account. Everyone else is an impostor and should be reported as such.’
Obi-Wan wrote and posted it without thinking too much, just adding the homepage of Quin’s new profile under it.
Kenobi’sRealHusband was the name they all agreed on. A bit boring, if you listen to that terror he married, but it went straight to the point, it wasn’t too ridiculous like all his suggestion had been and it hadn’t already been picked by someone pretending to be him online.
He had absolutely zero hope on it being ignored in favor of all the things happening to the galaxy, and he was resigned on speaking about in for the next two to five weeks in every interview.
But he had also enlisted Quin in planning a revenge on the Council.
Between Khe Lienna tormenting him and the missions he was given he barely had a day or two to recover alone in the Temple - and never with Quin there too.
He was getting sick of it.
Especially because after the war it felt like the ‘ability and prestige Master Kenobi would bring would be indispensable for the success of any negotiation’ excuse meant no one was willing to get a generic jedi help. No, only the famous ones were deemed ‘acceptable’ which was truly ridiculous and needed to be addressed and corrected as soon as possible.
Probably he could fake an injury severe enough to force people to accept other diplomats.
Breha and Bail surely would let him hide on Alderaan for it. And he surely could play the ‘worried and caring husband’ card to get Quinlan to join him.
Or he could just disappear and join him wherever he would be. He had done so before without problem and now that he was a Councilor he had the power to get him out of troubles easily.
Yes, he would need to look into…
The doorbell got him out of his mind.
Not Anakin’s prolonged ‘driiin’. Not Ahsoka’s one short-one long-one short rings. Not Padawan Sarre’s three fast press. Not Cody’s two fast-pause-one knocks either. Quinlan had never even bothered to try and announce himself. So who?
He drank the last sip of his tea, sadly room-warm, and went to do the proper master part instead of pretending to not be there.
Waiting for him there was a half theelin boy he had never met before, judging by the braid old enough to be a senior padawan by a couple of years at least. His robes were standard but yellow toned.
“Good afternoon, Master Kenobi.” He bowed to him “I’m sorry to disturb you.”
“No need to apologize, padawan…?”
“Fel’girp’enelad. Everyone call me Fel’gi.”
“Nice to meet you.” Obi-Wan did a little bow “How can I help you?”
“Master Windu asked me to come and tell you that the Council meeting was moved two hours early and that he couldn’t contact you personally.” He bowed again and Obi-Wan managed to see the little drop of sweats on his neck.
Was speaking to him that nerve-wrecking? He needed to ask Ahsoka.
“Thank you, I will head there immediately.”
Fel’gi nodded, bowed a third time, then nodded again “Have a good day, master.”
“You too.”
Well, his day was surely going to be horrible, but it wasn’t the padawan’s fault so no need to answer truthfully.
He went back in, turned off the music, brought the now empty cup and pot in the sink, put on his boots and then resigned to another lost free morning.
_______________________________________________________
He had been waiting for Obi’s post the whole morning.
Despite being on a mission -thankfully on Coruscant, the perks of having a city-planet big enough to keep him busy for decades - he wouldn’t need to go out his little and squalid room until after mid meal, which was why they had chosen today to make the announcement.
And now, finally, he made it.
‘Regret it’, he said. As if Quin hadn’t spent a whole night repaying that favor, exactly like Obi wanted him to do. Well, he supposed the other had an image to uphold.
Not for long.
Since he had been named directly, he took it as the perfect opening.
‘Hey everybody! Nice to finally be taken seriously! And since I know a lot of you won’t believe it’s me, here’s the proof. Who wants to see baby Master Kenobi?’
And then he posted one of his favorite picture: Obi was five and wearing paper Yoda’s ears, standing next to the real Yoda while holding them upright with his hands, smiling toothlessly at the camera. Yoda had a obviously fake but very fond grunt on his face, his head tilted to be in the same position as Obi’s.
It had been for a Creche theatre’s recital, the yearly one Mace directed. Quinlan had got to be the darksider that year and when in the end Obi-Wan-as-Yoda got to defeat him he acted so well Obi had started crying fearing he really had hurt him; after he had broken the character to go and confort him Mace had closed the act by saying that friendship redeemed the darksider. A happy ending for the children watching among the laughters of the adults.
The recordings were available in the Archives and apparently a lot of jedi during the war had asked for copies of those shows. It had helped during the harder times.
Now, it would serve him as well.
The notifications began immediately, a constant vibration coming from his comm. Hundreds and hundreds of comments piling under his post.
Oh well, the goal was to make the public like them, right? Surely it made them popular.
Quinlan read as many as he could, answering a couple of them and taking notes of those downright offensive and slandering to look into them later, before he had to go.
If he played his cards right he would be able to be back for Obi-Wan’s nameday, and after seven years of missing it he was determined to broke the chain. He had everything planned already too, so he would do the impossible to make it work.
_______________________________________________________
Obi-Wan saw the post only three hours later.
Regret wouldn’t even begin to cover what he was feeling.
Of course the bastard had posted one of his baby pictures. Why not? Not like he could retaliate with the embarrassing ones he had of him, since his identity had to remain a secret.
The thousands of comments under it kept growing by leaps and bounds.
Even Plo had commented! The traitor.
He went back online ‘You’re sleeping on the couch, I hope you know it.’
Not like he was there to to that, but no one needed to know it. And he wasn't above keeping track of that to make him pay once he would be back.
He put the comm away before anyone could notice his comment, marching towards his quarters. Maybe he could still relax a bit before his afternoon meetings.
Of course, the Force couldn’t even grant him that.
Ahsoka was waiting for him, half sitting half falling off his armchair, with a cookie in her mouth.
“I hope it was not the last one, padawan, or…”
She floated the tin to him, still store sealed “I came prepared. See?”
“That’s why I like you more than Anakin.” Obi-Wan flopped down on the couch “Any reason for you to be here and not with your oh so much younger then me friends?”
That had become the new taunting, since the end of the war both her and Anakin had yet to miss an opportunity to remember him how old he was. Quinlan had jumped on that train too, despite being older than him.
“I…”
The way her voice faded after just that word made him shiver. He immediately sat up, moving to the end closer to her “What happened?”
“Nothing. Just… Barriss is training with her master, Klea is being punished in the Archives and everyone else is on missions.”
He felt a pinch-like pressure on his shields, a nagging sensation that there was more. And he probably knew what it was.
“Where’s Anakin?”
“I don’t know.” She whispered ”He wasn’t here this morning.”
For the Force’s sake…. “I was going to train a bit, wanna come with me? I could use a double saber partner to warm up a bit.”
She looked at him outraged “Warm up?!?”
“Yes, padawan. You may be a lot better than your peers, but I’m still a master.” He smirked, knowing he got her. That need to prove herself was the result of both the war and Anakin’s teaching style, but he was working on getting her out of it. After all, these days they she felt a lot more like his padawan than his grandpadawan.
“I can hold up against you!”
“As I said, you are good but you never fought me without restraints.”
She faltered for a second, after all he was the Master of Soresu, but she kept her appearance of cockiness well enough “Are we going?”
He was going to have fun teaching her a bit of humility “Go get dressed, I’ll be there in ten.”
“Yes, master.” She sprinted away and he shook his head.
While not a free morning, training with his grandpadawan was way better than speaking with spoiled senators and ambassadors.
Especially because Ahsoka had never seen his second saber before, and he was looking forward to see her face.